Several types of cigarette packets present on the market have an outer container which slidably houses an inner container which accommodates a group of cigarettes.
The inner container can slide inside the outer container between a closed position in which the inner container is completely inserted in the outer container, and an open position, in which the inner container is partly extracted from the outer container.
Some embodiments of hard cigarette packets which slide open by a translating movement are described in patent documents FR2499947A1, U.S. Pat. No. 4,534,463A1, U.S. Pat. No. 5,080,227A1 and IT116916 B.
Often, the inner container applies a certain amount of lateral compression on the group of cigarettes inside it. When the cigarette packet is new and the group of cigarettes it contains is whole, the lateral compression applied to the group of cigarettes may be relatively high and may make it quite difficult to take out the first cigarette from the group of cigarettes owing to the friction between the first cigarette itself and the cigarettes around it.
One solution which has been proposed to make it easier to take out the first cigarette, and if necessary also other cigarettes, from the group, is to couple to at least one cigarette in the group a pull-out tape with one end which protrudes from the top wall of the group of cigarettes and which is designed to be gripped and pulled in order to lift out the cigarette.
These pull-out tapes, however, usually require the inner end of them, opposite the end to be gripped, to be glued to one wall of the inner container. This constitutes a major disadvantage since the inner wrappings of cigarette packets have always been left free of glue because glue in contact with or close to the cigarettes may give off volatile substances which are absorbed by the cigarettes and cause an unwanted alteration of the flavour and/or taste of the cigarette tobacco.